


Reign on Me

by Safe_to_Sway



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-08
Updated: 2014-10-10
Packaged: 2018-02-20 09:27:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2423675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Safe_to_Sway/pseuds/Safe_to_Sway
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One wish to make it come true. One chance to make it right.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_This story is one I abandoned a long time ago and have decided to blow the dust off and breathe life into it once more, but with a few changes. In the years since it was written last, I have noticed after re-reading it that my writing skills have improved somewhat since and I have taken liberties to re-vamp and tidy things up a bit. We'll see what happens and where this thing goes._

_The timeline is set one year after the events of Final Fantasy VII. The events of AC and DOC are irrelevant to this story. The main pairing will be Cloud/Sephiroth._

_Enjoy!_

* * *

Footsteps echoed through hallowed walls as they made contact with the languished wood floor, the musky tang of rotting timber mingled with the soft, sweetness of flora.

As his heartrending gaze shifted from left to right, then finally focusing on the garden of gold and pearl petals before him, Cloud could feel the cold, sharp pang of unworthiness hack and slash its blade through his heart relentlessly. This was too sacred of a place for such a contemptible soul.

It was a good thing Vincent had taken possession of the Hades summon, along with a few others for 'safekeeping', after the last battle—the thought of beckoning forth the Lord of Darkness and serving up his tainted, blond soul on a silver platter for the fiend to devour was one that crossed Cloud's mind more than once. He just knew he'd have to pry the materia out of the ex-Turk's cold, dead hand before that could happen. But, in the end, Vincent would see his death as atonement for his own sins and would gladly welcome it, and that was a risk Cloud was not willing to take. As selfish as it may be, no one else deserved to sacrifice their life. No one's sins were greater than his.

His freewill hadn't led him to this place on this day. No, it was compulsion brought forth by a dream.

It was a dream he had experienced many times before since _her_ death. White nothingness—an idyllic oblivion. No more fears, no more torment, no more wants, no more needs. Just a vast field of swaying blossoms and the girl whose delicate touch still tended them, even in death. Only this time, the field of lilies lay barren of its caretaker as a narrow path, gilded like the sun, manifested and wound through its splendor, finally leading up misty, stone steps and through grand, oaken doors.

The Sector 5 church stood gloriously, its dilapidated state known to the earthbound was not the way it was embodied in the Lifestream.

Its mighty, stone walls stood strong and true with no fissures of age and neglect to allow the iniquity of blight and affliction to seep through. Its spire-topped steeple like an antenna spiraling straight to Heaven, a beacon radiating Gaia's guiding light to those making the final journey from life to death, flesh to spirit—becoming one with the Planet.

It was a wondrous sight, but also a frightening one. Because Cloud knew that it was Aerith's way of telling him, "You're needed."

A sharp, shuttering breath escaped Cloud's lips, his burdens too heavy to even lift a boot to turn and walk out the door.

He didn't want to be needed. When he was needed, people died. When people put trust in him, that trust is shattered into a million pieces by powers that he has fought hard to control, but at times, he can feel that control slowly slipping through his fingers.

That's why he started the delivery business—to keep the peace by keeping his distance from everyone without having to make empty promises. Cloud could be gone for days, sometimes weeks, enough time for him to brood, recoup, and start the charade all over again. When he returned to the bar for a short day or two, his wits were collected enough to slap on a fake smile for Tifa and the kids, chart out the new delivery logs, and be on his half-assed, merry way. Everyone stayed somewhat content, and he kept his emotions bottled up like a violently shaken two-liter of soda. It was dysfunctional structure, but structure none the less.

But, as of late, the brooding began morphing into dangerously intimate visions and hallucinations, and what attachments he did have with his friends and 'family' were completely severed.

He tried many times to convince himself it was the Jenova cells corrupting his mind and causing this inexorable draw to _him_ —poisoning his head, provoking such wanton thoughts—but the more excuses he made, the more he realized that that's all they were…sorry-ass, piss-poor excuses. He had the power to break the control. He'd done it before. But did he really want to?

He wouldn't compare these provocative images to the ones he would indulge in when he needed some sort of release from the stress life brought on by the hometown that made him resentful and the corporation that made him into a monster. No, these were more vivid, more intense. Most of these waking dreams started out in a heated battle and ended up in a carnal armistice, so to speak.

One delusion was so real that Cloud thought he was battling Sephiroth high above the wastes, rocketing through the air en route for the madman with the sole purpose of cutting him down, when suddenly, out of nowhere, he was kissing a rock face. When he finally regained consciousness, he limped away with a broken leg, mangled arm, and concussion, Fenrir was towed away a twisted heap. He was back out in the wastes three days later with the hopes of experiencing it all over again—minus the bike and the cliff.

It sickened him. It warped his innards and racked his body with so much guilt to the point of physical ailment. He couldn't even hold down Tifa's cooking. And Tifa could cook her ass off. Needless to say, that widened the rift in the household.

But it also thrilled him. It stimulated his enhanced senses in ways he had never experienced before. It was like liquid fire coursing through every stratum of his body, burning an imprint of each encounter with the silver phantom into his mind, making him crave more and more.

It was like a double-edged sword carving him in two.

There was no one he could confide in. Everyone in the 800 lands would have him committed if they heard such lunacy spew from his mouth. Some already had their suspicions.

He had lost count how many 'coincidental' encounters he's had with one or more of Rufus' Turks while out on deliveries. You can always tell it's a setup when Reno claims, "I'm here for the putang, yo", still donning his black suit—which was sopped with sweat—while lying out on the beach with Rude standing like a stone sentinel next to the soft vendor's stand a few yards away.

Cloud knew his guise was cracking and peeling away. It was only a matter of time before the rest of him followed suit.

"You're about to break."

His heart staggered in his chest at the sound of her voice and touch of her hand on his shoulder, but he dare not move—because if he did, he'd surely wake and realize that this was just another dream.

Her tender hand radiated soothing warmth as it slowly glided down his bare arm until her slender fingers laced with his gloved ones.

Cloud closed his eyes and swallowed down his inhibitions as he listened to the light thumping of her boots against the floorboards begin to match the slowing beat of his heart, feeling her presence gently move from behind him.

Every steadying breath he took filled his body with her nurturing and beatific essence. And as he continued to do so, the calm washed over him more and more giving him enough courage to open his eyes.

Hers were as bright and pure as ever.

"This isn't real…is it?"

Aerith tilted her head to the side and gave Cloud a playful smile. "Well, if it isn't…then why are my fingers turning purple?"

Cloud's brows furrowed and then shot up when he looked down, finally catching the gist and quickly releasing his death-grip on her hand. "Sorry."

"It's alright," she chuckled, wiggling her fingers to get the blood flowing through them again, "I can still move them."

Her lightheartedness quickly turned to worry when Cloud's eyes suddenly lost their luminousness, growing dim and dark.

"Cloud, what's wrong?" It was more of a demand than a question.

Cloud reached out and took her hand in his, re-lacing their fingers together before covering them with his other, his words beseeching as he spoke. "I want to come with you…when you go back. I'm ready to give my soul to the Planet."


	2. Chapter 2

_I will let you all know that not all the chapters will be as short as these first few. I know I like good, long chapters, myself, but these first few kind of need to end where the have ended. Later chapters will be lengthier._

_Thanks for the feedback, it's greatly appreciated._

_Enjoy!_

* * *

"If you don't take me with you…more people will die."

The silence was deafening, until…the earth mother's messenger's inner harpy was unleashed.

The benevolent and genial flower girl was actually _mad_ …no, that word wasn't expressive enough— _raging pissed_ was more of an appropriate picture to paint.

Cloud was almost horror-struck by Aerith's reaction.

The blond warrior took a slow step back, unsure if he even should be moving at all, Aerith's eyes smoldering as the molten green within them bubbled and roiled.

"And how many hearts will break knowing you're gone? You are a great many things, Cloud Strife…but a coward is _not_ one of them!"

Cloud took another step back and collapsed into the seat of a pew, his head hanging as low as his sense of worth. "I'm sorry…I didn't mean—"

"To be so selfish?" Aerith finished, taking a calming breath and a seat next to him, the displeasure still quite clear in her voice. "You've been through much worse and persevered."

"That's easy for everyone to think," Cloud murmured, his shadowed gaze finally reconnecting with Aerith's now allaying one. "Besides, I wouldn't call it persevering."

"You're right," Aerith sighed, "it is easy for people to think that, but is giving up really going to make all the pain go away?"

"No," was his timidly whispered reply, and he knew she was right. The last thing Cloud wanted was to be nailed to the cross of his own selfishness.

Aerith reached out to comfort him with her touch again, only this time his hand drew back as if not fit to accept it. "Talk to me."

Cloud didn't know any other way to say it. There was no sense in hesitating. So, he just said it. "I'm losing myself…to _him_ ," it was a good thing she could read lips.

The flower girl slowly nodded and replied, "I know," her eyes averting his for a split second, "you've been getting under his proverbial skin lately, as well."

Cloud's reaction was one of someone winning the million gil lottery and then told, as their signing the check and depositing it into their bank account, that $999,999.99 of it was being garnished and donated to the ShinRa Science Department's research and development fund.

A sharp pain in the left-side of his chest where a certain scar resided prompted him to stand and begin pacing up and down the aisle. "Why tell me this?"

Aerith stood and blocked the aisle-way, thwarting his pacing and making him stumble to keep from plowing into her. "Because it's something you need to know," her hands moving to the clasp of a chain behind her neck.

Cloud watched curiously as one of her hands removed the chain while the other dipped her willowy fingers between the slight bit of cleavage budding from the bodice of her dress to retrieve what looked like a miniature materia orb and held it out for him to take.

Cloud's heart suddenly felt like it was taking a sledgehammer to his ribcage the closer Aerith held the orb out in front of him, his lungs burning as if they weren't getting enough air. "Wha—what is that?" he barely managed to breathe the words out.

Aerith quickly dropped the orb into her palm and closed her fingers around it, and in doing so, Cloud almost immediately felt a bit of relief. She knew there would be some sort of reaction; she just didn't think it would be that intense. "Your soul mate."

Cloud narrowed his eyes on her hand for a split second before slap-in-the-fucking-face realization hit and widened them like saucers. " _He_ is no such thing," his voice deep with conviction, "he was, and always will be, my enemy and nothing more."

The flower girl followed Cloud's repulsed glare to her hand and back to his searing mako-blues. "You said yourself you were 'losing yourself to him'. Are you denying all that your mind, body and spirit have been allowing you to perceive and partake?"

Cloud cringed a bit at Aerith's obvious knowledge of what had been happening between himself and _revenant_ Sephiroth. "So all that's been happening is…real?"

Aerith solemnly nodded. "Yes. You and Sephiroth have a powerful affinity that links your souls. It's a bond that can never be broken, even in death. So, whether the two of you wish to accept it or not, you are kindred spirits…each the half that makes the other whole."

A massive migraine began to erupt and burn holes through Cloud's head.

He watched warily as Aerith slowly open her hand again and almost instantly his heart began racing. "We can no longer allow him to exist in the Lifestream. It's too great of a risk."

Cloud's chest heaved as he struggled for air. "Why? What kind of risk?"

Aerith reached for Cloud's hand and gently dropped the orb into his palm. The wave of red heat that hit him almost brought him to his knees and had him grinding his teeth to dust in his mouth. "He has the ability to pollute the Lifestream and render an epidemic upon the Planet and its people. And that's a risk we cannot take," her expression uneasy as she watched Cloud struggle to gain control of himself, but she knew the more exposure he had to Sephiroth's aura; the faster he would build up a restrained resistance to it. "His soul is imprisoned inside the materia, but it will not hold him forever."

Cloud attempted to gain his equilibrium as the small globule nestled in the palm of his hand swirled with luminous green and silver wisps dancing within. "What the hell am I supposed to do with him? I obviously can't smash this thing; he'd just end up back in the Lifestream."

Aerith turned and knelt down, plucking a perfect, white lily from her garden and offering it to Cloud. "You have to nurture his spirit in order for it to be freed. He needs his soul mate to guide him and reveal to him the truths that have been kept from him his entire existence, and give him back the life that he was so unjustly robbed of."

Cloud looked down at his hand and stared menacingly. "I'd rather just run his ass through."


	3. Chapter 3

" _I don't understand, why can't we just keep him trapped in the materia forever?"_

_The flower girl reached out and closed his gloved fingers around the glowing orb, her eyes dancing with the mischievous mirth of a fay despite the severity of the situation. "Because Cloud, your desire is what will set him free."_

Aerith's last words before leaving the mortal realm and returning to the Lifestream kept replaying in his mind over and over again.

The last thing Cloud desired was to unleash calamity upon the Planet. Not that it would get that far. He'd stop Sephiroth before that could ever even come close to happening, but then they'd be back to square one. If Sephiroth died, his soul would return to the Lifestream, and that couldn't happen either.

Cloud sat on the decrepit, stone steps of the church, his back braced against the door as he huffed an exasperated breath. His heart still raced and a light sheen of sweat was now slickening his skin, narrowing his eyes on the star-crossed sphere that seemed to be arrogantly sparkling in his hand like it was some sort of rare jewel that had lost its crown...and the longer it held his incensed eyes, the more the rubble and ruin of the world around him began to drown in the waters of Lethe.

Mako-blues slowly blinked. Then they blinked again, before finally focusing. What they saw begin to manifest within the viridian hued gossamer that billowed through the shadowy air like cobwebs had Cloud's hand instantly around First Tsurugi's hilt and ready to strike.

The two of them stood facing each other for a long, tense silence, until Cloud finally broke it and chanced a quick survey of his ethereal surroundings. "What have you done?"

The response velvet and deadly. "A question I'd also like answered."

Cloud silently cursed the man before him, almost expecting to wake up any second with his body twisted around a cliff, or his clothes ripped to shreds with Masamune's kisses marring his skin.

The silence then engulfed them. They stared at each other, both deep in their own thoughts, yet looking into each other's eyes intently…intensively, rather.

Even though he stood within the transcendental brume that seemed to have him held captive within its coiling grasp, Sephiroth had all the magnificence of the man he once was—before his fall from grace. And Cloud did not fail to notice.

His eyes seemed brighter and clearer; as if the dark tempest of raging madness no longer whirled with a turbulent tangle of wind and lightning within them. His porcelain skin blushed with a bit of color, not ashen and corpse-like. His demeanor, though still 'holier than thou', seemed more lucid and reasoned—the ex-General wasn't even trying to make any attempt to escape. Masamune was spun within the same luminous helix of emerald just as her master, only inches from his grasp.

A tendril of a whisper probed Cloud's mind. It stretched and grew like an ivy vine, searching this way and that as if seeking the light, until finally he heard a familiar voice, soft and coaxing… _"Your desire is the key to many doors, Cloud."_

Sephiroth watched him curiously, waiting.

It left a bittersweet taste in the silver-haired man's mouth to be standing face to face with Cloud: the young man who slayed his mortal flesh and haunted his eternal soul. The Cetra had warned him of this moment coming to pass, though he assumed it would be on more equal terms. Being bound and imprisoned inside a piece of crystallized mako that Cloud could decorate his neck with was beyond perverse.

But from what he understood by the bit of cryptic information the Cetra allowed him, he was responsible for all of this. Sephiroth did not dare to hope this was true, nor could he dare ponder what that might mean. Something deep within refused that knowledge, as if his own mind was keeping his memories enslaved just as the Cetra had caged his spirit within the materia.

The only reminiscences he could discern were bits and pieces of his last mission and the imaginings that invaded his eternal slumber within the Lifestream, dreams of intense battling with this man named Cloud, and even more intense…

Sephiroth closed his eyes for a brief moment in an attempt to rid the salacious thoughts from his mind.

Basically, he knew he had died, and the man standing before him was the one who took his life, which was now at his mercy, because of atrocities committed by his own hand that he had no memory of.

He also had no recollection of this blond-haired, mako-blue-eyed SOLDIER—because it was quite obvious that was what this man was. It was also a bit unnerving the way his fighting style was very similar to Angeal's—perhaps he was a scorned follower of Hewley. The sword he used, on the other hand, was another story all its own. Was he possibly one of the 2nd or 3rd Class rouges that followed Genesis into desertion? Even so, the General knew each and every face and the name given to it amongst all classes of his SOLDIER contingent, and the face staring back at him forebodingly was not one of them.

"What is your rank and unit number?"

Cloud cocked a blond eyebrow, his eyes widening a bit with the action.

It was definitely not a question he was expecting from an _insane_ Sephiroth; it actually stunned him a bit. But after a minute or two of hesitation, Cloud answered the question with blunt truth. "I'm no SOLDIER. I was an infantryman turned guinea pig for Hojo's enjoyment."

Sephiroth's blood ran cold except for the blistering feel of bile slithering up from his stomach and searing his throat. "I see," his equanimity like chiseled marble, "is it his sins I'm now paying for?"

At that very moment, Cloud hated the sound of his own life. His pulse thrummed cruelly in his neck, his wrist, into the tips of his fingers and pressing painfully against his ribs. He wondered if Sephiroth could feel it. His eyes fixed on his nemesis. It was something concrete and real, even more proof that this was real, that Sephiroth was real, just like the way he was losing feeling in his hands.

The stillness stretched for a long time. Despite the silence, Sephiroth could _feel_ Cloud's torment and anger rolling like waves lapping the shore, only to break and fall away again. It fascinated him, and he hesitated just long enough in his next question for Cloud to strengthen his thinning resolve, lift his chin, stare Sephiroth stubbornly and resolutely in the eye and say, "He paid for his…now we atone for ours."

Before cat-jade eyes could blink, First Tsurugi broke into two blades and was slashing away the empyreal radiance that bound Sephiroth's body and soul to the materia.


End file.
